I. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to a vehicle for moving large self-propelled devices such as airplanes in directions and manners in which they cannot be self-propelled or readily moved by other means. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a specialty carriage vehicle for moving aircraft sideways to access a hangar, or the like.
II. Description of the Related Art
Most aircraft are designed to taxi on triangular landing gear (three-point support) under their own power in a forward or backward direction. Turning is accomplished by steering the nose wheel in types of planes having nose wheels and utilizing swivel-mounted tail wheels for certain other models. Many older types of hangars designed to house such aircraft when not in use are relatively long and narrow and are designed to accommodate a plurality of aircraft disposed one behind another. Certain types of lighter weight aircraft designed for low altitude flying at relatively slow speeds, such as those used in crop dusting or spraying or the like, have a wingspan which greatly exceeds the length of the aircraft and which also exceeds the width of hangar doors or even the hangar building itself in the case of some relatively long and narrow older hangar buildings. In this regard, many of the doors and buildings are of a size which could accommodate such aircraft readily if they were able to maneuver and enter and exit the building doors in a sideways direction rather than addressing them from the front or rear. Accordingly, it would present a great advantage if one were able to move and position aircraft of this class readily in a sideways direction to accommodate ingress and egress from the hangar and also to facilitate parking of the aircraft in the hangar.
The landing gear of planes of this class generally consists of a pair of relatively large symmetrically disposed wheels carried on a pair of strut supported frames, each of which is attached to one side of the fuselage airframe beneath the wings. The third point of support is provided by a rather small pivotally mounted tail wheel.
A moving device would have to be capable of addressing the aircraft head-on in a front-to-back relation between existing landing gear, elevating the plane structure such that it is supported by the carriage system and then moving the carriage system in a direction substantially at right angles to the original direction used in addressing the plane. In order to accomplish this complicated task in a sufficiently simple manner as to be practical, a system would have to be devised, generally, which could alternately be supported in two different modes and moved in two different directions, together with the necessary powered mechanized systems to operate the system as desired
Carriage or cart mechanisms have been devised which contemplate more than one set of support wheels which can alternately be used to support and/or convey a load of interest. One such device is illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,426 to Long, in which a doffing machine for textile spindles is provided with dual sets of wheels in conjunction with an integral jacking and turntable arrangement. The transporting unit normally operates on one parallel rail track using one set of wheels attached to the turntable mechanism; alternatively, as needed, the doffing machine can be lifted or elevated off the rails and supported on the turntable, rotated and lowered onto a different set of rails having an axis which intersects the axis of the first set of rails. Thus, the carriage mechanism can be carried by the turntable wheels or the set of wheels designed to ride the rails alternatively, as desired.
Other devices have been known which can be utilized to move or park heavy objects by moving them in directions abnormal to their conventional, self-propelled directions. These include a car parking mechanism which allows a car to be moved directly sideways on a set of retractable auxiliary wheels as illustrated and described in C. W. Ash, et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,003,571). That system is permanently mounted to the chassis of the automobile and does not involve the use of an independent vehicle.
None of the previous devices would be usable to move devices such as airplanes. There remains a definite need for an independent, readily deployable auxiliary carriage vehicle which can be moved beneath the superstructure of an airplane, or the like, readily utilized to lift the plane into position and move the plane in the direction at an angle to that normally described by the landing gear wheels.